We All Gotta Die Sometime by CrackedFic
by Bad Boys of Twilight
Summary: You don't like him? Good. Stay away. It'll save him the trouble of smacking you around. Touch the girl? He'll burn down the whole town just to watch you die. AH


**Title of Story: We All Gotta Die Sometime**

**Rating: M**

**Pairing: Bella & Edward**

**Genre: Crime/Romance**

**Word Count: 3,513 (wordcounttool dot com)**

**Story Summary: You don't like him? Good. Stay away. It'll save him the trouble of smacking you around. Touch the girl? He'll burn down the whole town just to watch you die. AH**

**Standard Disclaimer: The author does not own any publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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_Part One: Encounter_

"Beer," I say, eyeing the dump as my eyes adjust to the darkness. Looks like it's held together with nothing but dust and the sweat of a hundred cops gone bad.

She pulls her dark hair into a quick bun, wipes down the bar in front of me, makes sure I get a good look at her tits under the white tank top that's a size too small.

"What kind," she says, approaching the tap. Her red lips smile; her eyes don't.

"Whatever." I'll be lucky to get a clean glass in here, let alone a decent drink.

She fills a mug, slides it over. Foam tides over the top, oozes down the frozen glass, pools at the bottom.

"That'll be six dollars," she says. She lifts her eyebrows.

I pull out my wallet, finger a $100 bill.

She freezes, eyes my ID and gold shield before I flip the wallet closed and hand the bill over.

"It's yours," I tell her as she takes it, her fingers brushing mine.

She hesitates before stuffing the bill into her bra. I can see it resting against her smooth skin.

"What else do you expect for it, Detective Cullen?" she says with a half smile. She's quick.

"The truth, Miss Swan." I've done my research.

I light a Marlboro, hit the beer. It's flat, weak. The ice crystals floating on top have more flavor than the beer does.

"I don't know anything," she says. She turns her back to me, as if she's going to rinse some glasses, looks over her shoulder. "Like I told the uniforms when they were in here yesterday."

"I'll decide what you know. Understand?"

She steps back from the sink, pulls the towel from her apron, re-wipes the same spot in front of me. She looks like she's deciding something. I know which way she'll go, but I let the process take hold. She side-eyes the two guys at the other end of the bar.

"Don't worry about them. I own them. This is about you, me, a dead kid and a perp who don't got much longer to live. You're going to help me find him and I'm going to kill him."

She stops wiping. Looks at me hard. Chews on her cherry-red bottom lip like it's coated in candy.

I remove my sunglasses and give myself over.

She looks deep, doesn't like what she finds. I can feel the moment she breaks. The hue of her skin changes from pink to gray, caused by the way the neon reflects off the fine hairs that now stand on end. Her eyes dim, the breath leaks from her lungs, her bottom lip quivers, tiny wrinkles appear at the corners of her eyes.

It feels like taking over someone's soul.

"Yeah," she says. She sighs. Her voice is shaking. "The guy was in here before."

"Before what?" I say.

"Before that," she says.

She nods at the window, where across the street police tape still surrounds the shot-up husk of a tattoo shop that used to double as a mob safe house.

I sip my beer.

"Describe him."

"Tall," she says, "black leather jacket, real nice, soft and smooth. Expensive suit underneath, black on black."

I know the guy. Jimmy the Vamp, hitman, number two in the chain of command. Likes to shoot people in the neck twice. Watch 'em bleed out. A guy with a mean streak and no conscience. He screwed up this time. Got caught in the act. A shoot-out took a little kid's life. The whole department's on this one. Problem is, Jimmy knows a thing or two about me. Payoffs, witnesses disappearing. Stuff I can't have the brass latching onto. He goes down, he'll sing like a canary and take me down with him.

"What else?" I ask.

"His shoes," she says. She turns away, puts her head down.

"Tell me, Bella. I need to know about the shoes."

She's tearing up now, can barely speak. She looks at me through wet eyes. "His shoes," she says. "They were covered in mud."

"The mud, Bella. What about the mud?"

She stops, and her gaze puts a hole through me. She takes a breath and chews that lip. "Red," she says. She says it so softly it's almost like a prayer.

She stares off into space and takes a smoke from my pack. Her fingers shake so much she can't light the match.

I pull out my Zippo. She takes my hand in hers and guides the flame to her mouth.

"The mud was red," she repeats, inhaling, blowing two quick streams of smoke through her nose.

We both know red mud only comes from one place around here, the old clay mine off Canterbury Road. I know where he's hiding now.

I drop my butt into the last of the beer.

"You did the right thing," I say, not meaning it for a second. I reach out and take her hand. It's frozen. Her nails dig into my palm as she grips me back.

"Please don't tell anyone," she says. She won't let me go. Clasps my hand hard. "Please, Detective. They'll kill me."

The butt has burned down to her fingers, filling the air with acrid smoke. The washcloth forgotten, she gives me all her attention.

She's right. They'll kill her. And I don't give a good god damn. Everybody gotta die sometime.

"Don't worry about it," I say on my way out the door. "You didn't say a word."

_Part Two: Hunt_

I take Jimmy out with a throwaway .38. Two to the chest. The fucker didn't have time to bleed.

Wipe my prints and toss the gun in the river.

I pull my coat tight, light up. Start the Crown Vic and pull onto the highway

Headlights in the rear view. Shouldn't be anything out here this time of night. Just dirty cops and dead hitmen.

I ease up on the gas. Let 'em get close. Slam the brake pedal. Fuckin' amateur.

The old pickup smacks my bumper with enough force to make me glad I'm in a big American car.

I have the door open and my gun out before the truck's radiator has drained its contents onto the road.

I elbow the driver's window and reach through broken glass with my gun hand.

"Don't do it, scumbag."

I smack the gun across the perp's temple to make sure the message is clear.

"Ow. Stop."

"You followed me?"

She looks at me, her head down and her eyes up.

"I had to make sure," she says.

I ought to smack her again. The dumb cooze.

She knows what I'm thinking. Puts a hand on my forearm. It's warm, soft. I pull away.

"Wait. Detective. Wait."

It's stupid to wait. There's a dead capo a half-mile back and I'm sitting on the side of the road talkin' to some dumb broad with a death wish.

"Why'd you follow me?"

"I had to know."

I get it. I'd want to know too. I don't say nothin.

"They'll still come after me, won't they? Won't they, Detective?" She's asking, but she already knows.

"Yeah. They'll know who mighta seen 'em that day. They was gonna come after you anyway, eventually. I just made it harder. You should be thanking me."

She gets out of the truck. Broken glass crunches under her heels as she steps toward me. Puts that soft hand on my arm again.

"You'll protect me, won't you, Detective?"

I look at the trickle of blood on her temple, glad I made a mark. "They want you, they'll get you. Ain't nothing some two-bit cop like me could do about it. Even if I wanted to."

She squeezes my arm. I eye her hand, but don't make her move it away.

"What's your first name?"

"It's Detective."

She frowns. Puts her head down. Looks back up at me through her eyelashes. There's something there now, in her eyes, something new. I'm not sure I like it, but I want more.

I set my jaw tight. Those eyes. Dark brown, as deep as the abyss my life has become. I don't look. I can't stop looking.

She steps closer. Too close. I smell the shampoo she used tonight, feel the warmth of her skin as her breasts press against me, practically hear her heart beating out of her chest.

She puts a hand on my cheek. Burns a hole in it. Runs her thumb across my chin, achingly close to my bottom lip. I want to open up and bite it, make it mine, swallow it whole and keep it forever.

"Thank you, Detective," she says. "Nobody's ever done anything like that for me before."

She pulls her hand away, but the warm sensation continues. I'm gonna feel that hole in my face the rest of my life.

"I didn't do it for you," I tell her. Because it's the truth. And because I don't want her to get any ideas. Ideas like the one I'm having, like the one she's about to get, are dangerous. They get men like me killed.

She smiles like she knows something I don't.

We stare one another down and I realize then, when she won't look away or even flinch, standing on the side of the road in a pile of busted glass, that I made a mistake the other day. That scared little girl act wasn't real.

This chick ain't no wallflower. She's a fuckin' tornado. Gonna suck up everything in her path and kill it dead.

I pull her to me and kiss her. I kiss her hard. I kiss her so hard she don't know whether to kiss me back or smack me sideways. I'd appreciate either one, though a good smack is what I deserve. Maybe she'll be the first to give me the beating I got coming.

Before she decides, I let her go, set my jaw tight and walk back to my unmarked cruiser. I take off without looking back. I know I'll see her again.

_Part Three: Caught_

They took her at dawn the next day outside the bar, just as she was getting off her shift.

Somebody must've seen us together or they'd have killed her. They think she has something on me. They want it.

It'd be better if they'd offed her. Now someone in the department's gonna wonder why they kept her alive. They're gonna go looking for reasons. When Jimmy's body turns up, that reason's gonna be staring them in the face.

I gotta fix this clusterfuck or I'm a dead man.

I go to where I left Jimmy. Sit there in my car. Make a phone call. I'll let them come to me.

I tell myself the girl don't matter. She's dead already. Or might as well be.

Bella Swan. Bartender. Minor record. Drunk and disorderly, a DUI way back when, a couple domestic violence calls that never amounted to much.

I looked up her ex. Thug named Newton. Locked up at Starkville going on two years. Her folks are dead. No siblings. That's all I needed to know.

She's got no one. No one who'll miss her. No one who'll care when she's gone.

I picture her face, pale and smooth. Those eyes. The red lips. Teeth running across them. Her teeth. My teeth. My tongue. I picture those lips on me, bringing death with them. And I don't care. I want it, and I want it bad. I'd die for a last taste of those lips.

Tires crunch the gravel, rousing me. I finger the gun in my holster. Get out. Stand with my feet shoulder-width apart. I'm ready as I'll ever be.

Aro himself steps out of the Lincoln.

"Eddie," he says. "You the one done Jimmy? I'm surprised. You're smarter than that."

"He done it himself, Aro."

"That he did." He frowns, looks down at his feet. "Looks like we got ourselves a situation here."

I nod. "Let her go," I say in spite of myself. I ought to ask him to kill her.

"You know I can't do that."

"Then we got ourselves a worse situation, Aro."

He braces. "That sounds like a threat."

"I don't make threats."

He nods to the driver, a no-neck who goes by the name of Marcus. No-neck exits the vehicle, but I don't give him time to find his piece.

I fire toward Aro, sealing my fate, but he's already ducked behind the Town Car. I put one through the windshield as I hit the ground behind my Crown Vic. Now we're really in a situation.

"Why don't you call for backup, Detective?" he shouts. The fucker's laughing like a maniacal beast.

I crouch behind the front tire. I can't wait 'em out. The gunfire will draw interest. It's now or never.

I leap onto the hood of my car, fire another shot into the Lincoln's windshield, jump back down, and stand there like an asshole.

Marcus no-neck is the first to take the bait. I put one in his forehead and he falls like a tree. There's nothing like watching a thug die the way nature intended.

When I go around the side of the car, Aro is gone. I whip my head around and see him taking off in my Crown Vic.

Fucker's gonna pay for that.

_Part Four: Fatale_

They got her locked up in the Lincoln's trunk. She was able to kick out a taillight from the inside.

I pry it open, reach in. She waves me off like it's my fault. Who knows, maybe it is.

"You ain't some dumb bartender. What's your story? Your real story?"

She smirks and climbs out. Slams the trunk closed like she's got a vendetta.

"Just like you ain't some dumb cop."

"Who says I ain't?"

She brushes herself off, puts her heels back on over torn black stockings. Braces against the cool breeze. Runs her hands over the outside of my shirt.

"I do." She reaches up and puts her lips to mine.

I don't hold back this time. If some dumb cooze is gonna get me killed, it's gonna be this dumb cooze.

I put my hands under her thighs and lift her up. She wraps her legs around me and we're all over each other.

She bites my lip; I smack her ass.

She claws my back; I force her skirt up.

She grabs my cock through my pants; I slam her onto the deck of the trunk.

She fumbles with my zipper; I open it for her.

Her hands wrap around me, warm and soft. She strokes me, slides fingers underneath and squeezes. She squeezes too hard, so I finish the job I started and tear her panties away. Push myself in without waiting for the OK.

She spreads herself wide open as she guides me, lays her head against the Lincoln's window and closes her eyes.

I'm in deep, as deep as I can go, as deep as any man has ever been. I pump hard as she grabs my ass, forcing me in. She digs her nails in, lifts her head and bites my shoulder, smacks me around some. Lands one on my jaw that has my world spinning.

I fuck her like I ain't never fucked no one before. It's raw, grinding, fast. Ugly-beautiful. I come and open my eyes, see her staring at me like I'm a science project. The whole scene's over in five minutes. Ten, tops.

"You asked what my story was," she says, catching her breath, pulling a smoke from my pack. She lights up, finishes tearing off her panties, slides her torn skirt down over her garter belt and bare pussy.

She stands there like she's the one who asked the question, not me.

"Lemme guess," I say. I got the answers. I always did, was just too blinded to see them. "Dumb broad falls for dumber crook, pleads with crook to change his ways. Gets the snot knocked outta her for doing it. Watches him sink into the life, knowing he ain't gonna get out in one piece.

"Decides to help. For his own good. Winds up deep in the action. So deep, the men in charge won't let her out. Tell her she owes them a debt, even after her dumb boyfriend ends up behind bars.

"Learns a thing or two along the way, the business, the people, how to mix one with the other for the desired outcome. Uses her charms and her tits to lead one of the bosses on, tricks him into revealing things, makes him think they have a future together. Stashes away a couple dollars for a rainy day.

"Soon enough, she's saved up a boatload of cash, but the guy gets a whiff, wants in on the action. She's desperate to escape, but doesn't know how. Can't leave, can't fight her way out. Not alone. Not when she knows Jimmy the Vamp has a genuine thing for her now, to go along with his wanting in on her scam. With him out there, always watching, leaving's too dangerous.

"Then one day, she happens upon a dumb cop looking to escape a bad situation. Uses the cop to do her dirty deed. Fucks the cop on the trunk of the boss's Lincoln. Laughs about it later."

She's silent the whole time I'm talking. Taking it in. Burning holes in me with those chocolate eyes, those cherry lips.

"Who says I'm laughing?" she says. She gets close again, puts her hands on my cock, her lips to my ear.

"I'll laugh," she says, squeezing, "when that bastard Aro is dead."

I freeze up, limp and hanging in the breeze.

_Part Five: Death_

I figured it all wrong. Figured her all wrong.

We get back to town in Aro's Lincoln, hatching a plan.

As of now, I'm the only one left alive who knows Bella's secret, that she ain't just some dumb bartender pining for her man. With Jimmy gone, we have our opening. She's got brains, she's got balls. She's got me wrapped around her pinky like the dumb mook I am.

"Drive," I say.

She tells me she's stashed away over two hundred grand. That's almost as much as I've pocketed rousting drug dealers and thugs, taking the occasional mob payoff. Says she's been looking for a way to get Jimmy and Aro out of the picture so she can skip town, start a new life before Newton gets released.

"Aro fucked up letting Jimmy get so close to me," she says. She laughs, thinks of something new. "When he figures it out, he's going to rampage."

"We'll kill him first, before he has a clue."

She puts a hand on my thigh, blows smoke out the window. "I like the way you think, Eddie."

"You knew the whole time, didn't you? My name, my history? You knew everything. The tears? The fear? It was all for me. To lure me in."

She don't answer, just flicks her butt out the window and drives.

"You up for an adventure, Eddie?"

"With you, babe? Any time."

She smiles and puts the pedal to the metal. We're back in town before the sun comes up.

"We ain't gonna walk into his shop and blow him away, you know. Even if I wanted to, he'll have too much security. Aro's a made man, Bella. The Outfit'll have sent someone in by now. They'd spot me coming a mile away."

"There's no we about it," she says, pulling into a spot across from Aro's bail bonds, a sham storefront for mob business. She slams it into park, looks through me, the way I looked through her when we first met.

"Don't worry about security. They won't see me coming," she says.

She slams a loaded clip into a Glock so clean it looks like it's fresh off the assembly line. Maybe it is.

"I'll be back in five minutes."

I sit. I wait. I daydream. Her and me, me and her. Naked and alone, fucking like rabbits, swimming in piles of money, gunned down in our prime.

I laugh. Bella Swan, femme fatale. Who knew?

I laugh at how all this went down, how I got fooled, how I got captured, how I'm glad about all of it. How I'll probably be dead before it's over. How I don't give a good god damn. Everybody gotta die sometime.

She's back in three and a half minutes. Red speckles her cheeks and she's got blood pumping out of a wound in her shoulder.

"That was a shitstorm," she says. She winces and wraps a towel around the wound, cinches it tight.

There'll be others. I don't say it, but we both know it's true. They'll never stop coming, no matter how fast we run, no matter how far.

She leans over and kisses me hard before flooring it, as if to say, "Fuck it all."

The tires squeal as we flee the city, gunfire chasing us down.

-end-

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